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Port Washington

For the first time in five years, the City of Port Washington will provide funding for Port Main Street Inc. next year.

Aldermen last week approved a 2019 budget for the Port Washington Business Improvement District, which funds Port Main Street Inc., that includes a $10,000 contribution from the city to Main Street.

But that request, along with a statement in the BID operating plan that the group would seek $15,000 in city funding in 2020 and $25,000 in 2021, prompted a fair amount of discussion by the Common Council.

With the Port Washington Fire Department slated to get its second full-time employee next year despite a tight budget, Water Supt. Dave Kleckner on Tuesday made a pitch for the utility to add another position.

Kleckner told the Board of Public Works that his outside crew of four people is falling behind the required annual maintenance of the water system and, because his crew is aging, the department will face a spate of retirements in the coming years.

The Holiday Inn Harborview in downtown Port Washington is about to get a major facelift, inside and out.

Gone will be the carport at the entrance to the hotel, which will be enclosed to accommodate a new street-level bar and restaurant. The lobby will be expanded, new conference rooms added and a new patio created on the harbor side of the building.

There will be changes to the facade, including 110 new, energy efficient windows and colored, vertical panels and new trim added to the north side to help break up the brick facade.

It was a full house for Empty Bowls last week at the Ozaukee Pavilion at the Ozaukee County Fairgrounds in Cedarburg, the largest fundraiser of the year for Family Sharing of Ozaukee County.

Hundreds of people filled their bowls with soups prepared by local restaurants and enjoyed a meal with friends and neighbors to raise money for the organization, which aims to help feed the county’s hungry residents.

Ozaukee County residents affected by heavy rains that inundated the area in late August will not be receiving assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Small Business Administration (SBA), it was announced last week.

Both agencies denied requests from Ozaukee County and the state for assistance in the form of direct grants and loans to assist homeowners, renters and businesses recovering from the floods of Aug. 26-27.

When the gales of November whip Lake Michigan into a frenzy, they typically blow from the northeast, but the low pressure system that swept over the region on Sunday, Nov. 4, produced gale-force winds from the east-southeast that sent towering waves barreling straight into the harbor where they exploded against the wall of Fisherman’s Park in Port Washington. Photo by Sam Arendt

The Port Washington Town Board on Monday agreed to work with the Shipwreck Education and Preservation Alliance on its plan to place structures — sculptures and sunken vessels — at the bottom of Lake Michigan to create artificial reefs off Port’s shore that it says will improve the aquatic environment and help restore native fish levels.